News tagged with magnesium

Scientists of Siberian Federal University and the Institute of Physics of the SB RAS produced a new material for hydrogen storage. The material is based on magnesium hydride, and can store hydrogen mass of about 7 percent ...

Magnesium batteries offer promise for safely powering modern life—unlike traditional lithium ion batteries, they are not flammable or subject to exploding—but their ability to store energy has been limited.

University of Colorado Boulder engineers have revamped a World War II-era process for making magnesium that requires half the energy and produces a fraction of the pollution compared to today's leading methods.

A research team at NIMS and Nagaoka University of Technology developed high strength magnesium sheet metal that has excellent formability comparable to that of the aluminum sheet metal currently used in body panels of some ...

Since magnesium alloys are degradable, they could provide an alternative to the metals traditionally used as prostheses, connecting parts to heal bones or as stents for cardiovascular problems. A study by the UPV/EHU Faculty ...

A research group led by Professor Yuji Wada and Adjunct Professor Satoshi Fujii of the Tokyo Institute of Technology has devised a magnesium smelting method that uses nearly 70 percent less energy than conventional methods ...

Scientists cannot travel into the past to take the Earth's temperature so they use proxies to discern past climates, and one of the most common methods for obtaining such data is derived from the remains of tiny marine organisms ...

Batteries – can you image how cumbersome the world would be without them? Without any moving parts, batteries convert chemical energy into electricity, making everyday life more expedient. However, lengthy charging times ...

Magnesium

Magnesium ( /mæɡˈniːziəm/ mag-nee-zee-əm) is a chemical element with the symbol Mg, atomic number 12, and common oxidation number +2. It is an alkaline earth metal and the eighth most abundant element in the Earth's crust, where it constitutes about 2% by mass, and ninth in the known universe as a whole. This abundance of magnesium is related to the fact that it is easily built up in supernova stars from a sequential addition of three helium nuclei to carbon (which in turn is made from three helium nuclei). Due to magnesium ion's high solubility in water, it is the third most abundant element dissolved in seawater.

Magnesium is the 11th most abundant element by mass in the human body; its ions are essential to all living cells, where they play a major role in manipulating important biological polyphosphate compounds like ATP, DNA, and RNA. Hundreds of enzymes thus require magnesium ions to function. Magnesium is also the metallic ion at the center of chlorophyll, and is thus a common additive to fertilizers. Magnesium compounds are used medicinally as common laxatives, antacids (e.g., milk of magnesia), and in a number of situations where stabilization of abnormal nerve excitation and blood vessel spasm is required (e.g., to treat eclampsia). Magnesium ions are sour to the taste, and in low concentrations help to impart a natural tartness to fresh mineral waters.

The free element (metal) is not found naturally on Earth, as it is highly reactive (though once produced, it is coated in a thin layer of oxide [see passivation], which partly masks this reactivity). The free metal burns with a characteristic brilliant white light, making it a useful ingredient in flares. The metal is now mainly obtained by electrolysis of magnesium salts obtained from brine. Commercially, the chief use for the metal is as an alloying agent to make aluminium-magnesium alloys, sometimes called "magnalium" or "magnelium". Since magnesium is less dense than aluminium, these alloys are prized for their relative lightness and strength.